 Jordan Peele takes another bite at the razor laden horror apple, with a series that hits the mark well enough to warrant further viewing. "Lovecraft Country" tells the story of a young Black man who travels across the segregated 1950s United States in search of his missing father, learning of dark secrets plaguing a town on which famous horror writer H. P. Lovecraft supposedly based the location of many of his fictional tales. The show picks no bones about showing how deeply disturbing 1950s America was in relation to race. The situations that our protagonists find themselves in leave you questioning whether the line between fiction and reality had been sexed-up for the screen, or if so called 'civilised folk' really did erect signs informing visitors that they were in a ‘sundown town’. which effectively meant 'Niggers' had to leave before the fire in the sky did, or be subject to fire of another kind. I Googled ‘Sundown Towns’ and sure enough they where a thing - a real big thing. Looking into Sundown towns proved more frightening than anything Peele & co could have conjured upon our screens. Road trips for African Americans in that era were fraught with unbelievable levels of inconveniences, and real-life dangers spewing from racial segregation, upheld by citizens and law enforcement alike. The tragic phenomenon of Black travellers just "disappearing," in numerous Sundown Towns, never to be seen or heard of again was a peril that any Black American had to contend with if they wanted to cross the country. According to author Kate Kelly, "there were at least 10,000 'Sundown Towns' in the United States as late as the 1960s; In a sundown town non-whites had to leave the city limits by dusk, or they could be picked up by the police or worse. These towns were not limited to the South—they ranged from Levittown, N.Y., to Glendale, California, and included the majority of municipalities in Illinois."…Imagine how many people, or families fell foul to real monsters stalking towns, highways and woods. Imagine how many bodies are buried deep in that dry/damp southern dirt, never to be found. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, Lovers, friends perished for nothing more than a beauteous difference, an unbearable disturbance to racist white norms. I don’t want you to think the entire show surrounds the above, but it plays an understandably significant part given the era it’s set in. The gay scene thrown in sort of felt reachy though. I mean in conservative, Black, 1950s Chicago, I find it hard to believe a man would risk being ostracised from his community for the sake of a blow job behind a shop. I find it equally hard to believe Atticus Black, the main character, would merely shrug off seeing something so out of the ordinary without so much as a word about it. It was lazy, and an obvious attempt to shoehorn a shock. Anywho, Lovecraft County is Black horror and relatively well put together so far. I will be watching episode 2, you should as well. Lovecraft Country currently holds a 96% rotten tomato score Support me on instagram: @Rpfalconer Support me on twitter: @Rpfalconer Stay up-to-date with my blog by joining my mailing list >>Here<< Check out my books here: Amazon Comments are closed.
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